Public Schools, Educating or Indoctrinating?

I saw an article a small clip of a lecture by a Clemson University professor on public education and decided to write this article. I hope people stop settling for only what they learn in school and start being more responsible of there education for there own sake.

Many times you hear about the right to education and how you're privileged to live in a country where you receive free education, but how privileged are you really? The American public school system is not a system meant to educate the youth of America, but instead to put a filter on what you are taught, what you hear, and how you think. How though did your “right” to education come to be? In the presidential election of 1933 the 32nd President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected. FDR ran on eight major “rights” that he felt all Americans were entitled. a job, adequate pay, guaranteed security, a decent home, protection from economic fears, health care and education, but at who's expense?

A key point to keep in mind is that the public school system is a monopoly in its true form. The public school system is a government entity and government is the only institution in the world who can “legally” force you to do things at the point of a gun. Think about it. Your parents who may or may not approve of the school system are forced to pay into it. You are forced by laws of compulsion to go to school or else you will be harassed by police, social workers or can even taken away from your family. Your parents also pay for other kids to go to school which aren't even theirs! Why though did our government find it so important to make it law you must attend their schools? Lets look at some of history’s most famous regimes and compare. The Third Reich (Nazis) used schools to spread the Nazi propaganda to youth and get the youth to participate in Nazi activities to cram Hitler’s nationalists beliefs down the future generations of Germany. The Soviet Union, one of the deadliest regimes in human history. An estimated 20-60 million people were killed by Stalin’s regime; the Soviet Union also found it important to educate youth in order to control them and keep in a box per say. When government teaches youth, it controls what youth learn. Basic subjects like math and reading present little controversy other than how they could be taught better, but subjects like social studies and science are much more controversial. For example, global warming is taught in school as if it is absolute fact when more more studies are coming out disproving it steadily.

Another point is how public schools have failed miserably at whatever education they have attempted to. In 2011, according to School Library Journal, only thirty-two percent of Americans graduating from high school were proficient in math, and thirty-one percent proficient in reading. These figures come from a Harvard University study. Why is it that private schools do significantly better in educating their students than public schools? Well, like anything government related, it is inefficient. If a private schools incentive is to make money then it will what it can to make money and by doing that it will improve its education, cut costs without harming education, and making prices favorable in order to attract more students. Though in a public school it is going to be open whether every student in the school failed or passed, therefore what is the incentive for the teacher to actually do his/her job well?

How though are we supposed to provide quality education at affordable prices? Free market enterprise. just like every other industry in the United States whether it be computers, shoes, groceries, etc. businesses compete for consumers to buy there product using methods like lowering prices, cutting costs, and offering better services. Just like how businesses compete for consumers, schools would compete for students by cutting costs and prices while creating quality education. Just as how schools are accessible to every child in the United States now, under a free market economy schools would be just as accessible. The major argument against privatising schools would be of course that they would be too expensive for the average consumer. Though the same argument would still be made if the government said had said that pencils were a necessity and that every person in the country has the right to pencils and provided pencils backed on government dollars and all of the sudden someone said “lets privatizes the pencil industry.”

In, conclusion the best thing that could be to truly brighten the youth of America would be to get government out of the business of “educating” America's youth. Instead it is the duty of the parent to provide education, food, water, shelter, and other necessities not the state. I hope you have been enlightened by the real truth behind our school system and to never settle for what your schools says and always go back behind your school to make sure that what is being taught is true.

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